call

Woman making a telephone call (1964).

From Middle English callen, from Old English ceallian (“to call, shout”) and Old Norse kalla (“to call; shout; refer to as; name”); both from Proto-Germanic *kalzōną (“to call, shout”), from Proto-Indo-European *golH-so- (“voice, cry”), from *gelH-.

Cognate with Scots call, caw, ca (“to call, cry, shout”), Dutch kallen (“to chat, talk”), obsolete German kallen (“to call”), Swedish kalla (“to call, refer to, beckon”), Norwegian kalle (“to call, name”), Danish kalde (“to call, name”), Icelandic kalla (“to call, shout, name”), Welsh galw (“to call, demand”), Polish głos (“voice”), Lithuanian gal̃sas (“echo”), Russian голос (golos, “voice”), Albanian gjuhë (“language, tongue”).

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: kôl, IPA^(key): /kɔːl/, [kʰoɫ]

• Audio (RP)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /kɔl/, [kʰɔɫ]
• (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /kɑl/, [kʰɑɫ]

• Audio (GA)

  (file)

• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /koːl/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Homophone: coll (with the cot-caught merger)
• Rhymes: -ɔːl

call (third-person singular simple present calls, present participle calling, simple past and past participle called or (archaic) call'd)

1. To use one's voice.
   1. (intransitive) To request, summon, or beckon.

      That person is hurt; call for help!

      • 1684, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress. From This World to That which is to Come: The Second Part. […], London: […] Nathaniel Ponder […], →OCLC; reprinted in The Pilgrim’s Progress as Originally Published by John Bunyan: Being a Fac-simile Reproduction of the First Edition, London: Elliot Stock […], 1875, →OCLC, page 128:

        So they called for Rooms; and he ſhewed them one for Christiana and her Children and Mercy, and another for Mr. Great-heart and the old Gentleman.

   2. (intransitive) To cry or shout.
      • 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, Much Adoe about Nothing. […], quarto edition, London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for Andrew Wise, and William Aspley, published 1600, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]:

        If you heare a child crie in the night you must call to the nurſe and bid her ſtil it.

      • 1902, Rudyard Kipling, “How the Alphabet was Made”, in Just So Stories: For Little Children, New York, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, →OCLC, stanza 5, page 169:

        For far—oh, very far behind, / So far she cannot call to him, / Comes Tegumai alone to find / The daughter that was all to him!

   3. (transitive) To utter in a loud or distinct voice.

      to call the roll of a military company

      • 1714, J[ohn] Gay, “Saturday; or, The Flights”, in The Shepherd’s Week. In Six Pastorals, London: […] R. Burleigh […], →OCLC, page 56, lines 47–50:

        Not ballad-ſinger plac'd above the croud, / Sings with a note ſo ſhrilling ſweet and loud, / Nor pariſh clerk who calls the pſalm ſo clear, / Like Bowzybeus ſooths th' attentive ear.

   4. (transitive, intransitive) To contact by telephone.

      Why don’t you call me in the morning?

      Why don’t you call tomorrow?

   5. (transitive) To declare in advance.

      The captains call the coin toss.

   6. To rouse from sleep; to awaken.
      • 1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii], page 376, column 2:

        Take not away the Taper, leaue it burning: / And if thou canſt awake by foure o'th'clock, / I prythee call me: Sleepe hath ceiz'd me wholly.

   7. To declare (an effort or project) to be a failure.

      After the third massive failure, John called the whole initiative.

   8. (transitive, jazz) To request that one's band play (a particular tune).
      • 1997, Saxophone Journal:

        They called I Got Rhythm, and turned to me again for a solo, and I said what?

      • 2002, Ken Vail, Duke's Diary:

        Jeff Castleman and Rufus Jones were in position when they went out, and he immediately called Satin Doll.

      • 2015, Clyde E. B. Bernhardt, I Remember: Eighty Years of Black Entertainment, Big Bands, and the Blues, University of Pennsylvania Press, →ISBN, page 98:

        I thought he forgot all about it, but late in the set he called St. Louis Blues.

2. (heading, intransitive) To visit.
   1. To pay a (social) visit (often used with "on", "round", or "at"; used by salespeople with "again" to invite customers to come again).

      We could always call on a friend.

      The engineer called round whilst you were away.

      • a. 1700, William Temple, “Of Health and Long-life”, in Miscellanea. The Third Part. [...], London: […] Jonathan Swift, […] Benjamin Tooke, […], published 1701, →OCLC, page 127:

        [...] He ordered Her to call at His Houſe once a Week, which She did for ſome Time; after which He heard no more of Her.

      • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC, page 58:

        The Celebrity, by arts unknown, induced Mrs. Judge Short and two other ladies to call at Mohair on a certain afternoon when Mr. Cooke was trying a trotter on the track.

   2. To stop at a station or port.

      This train calls at Reading, Slough and London Paddington.

      Our cruise ship called at Bristol Harbour.

   3. To come to pass; to afflict.
      • 1968 December 8, Henry Cosby, Sylvia Moy, Stevie Wonder (lyrics and music), “I’d Be a Fool Right Now”, in For Once in My Life, performed by Stevie Wonder:

        They say your love will surely fade girl / When things go wrong and trouble calls

3. To name, identify or describe.
   1. (ditransitive) To name or refer to.

      Why don’t we dispense with the formalities. Please call me Al.

      • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

        I don't know how you and the 'head,' as you call him, will get on, but I do know that if you call my duds a 'livery' again there'll be trouble. It's bad enough to go around togged out like a life saver on a drill day, but I can stand that 'cause I'm paid for it. What I won't stand is to have them togs called a livery.

      • 1920, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Avery Hopwood, “The Shadow of the Bat”, in The Bat: A Novel from the Play (Dell Book; 241), New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 6:

        The Bat—they called him the Bat. Like a bat he chose the night hours for his work of rapine; like a bat he struck and vanished, pouncingly, noiselessly; like a bat he never showed himself to the face of the day.

      • 2013 June 28, Joris Luyendijk, “Our banks are out of control”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 3, page 21:

        But the scandals kept coming, and so we entered stage three–what therapists call "bargaining". A broad section of the political class now recognises the need for change but remains unable to see the necessity of a fundamental overhaul. Instead it offers fixes and patches.

   2. (in passive) Of a person, to have as one's name; of a thing, to have as its name.

      I’m called John.

      A very tall building is called a skyscraper.

      • 2013 September-October, Henry Petroski, “The Evolution of Eyeglasses”, in American Scientist:

        The ability of a segment of a glass sphere to magnify whatever is placed before it was known around the year 1000, when the spherical segment was called a reading stone, essentially what today we might term a frameless magnifying glass or plain glass paperweight.

   3. (transitive) To predict.

      He called twelve of the last three recessions.

   4. To state, or estimate, approximately or loosely; to characterize without strict regard to fact.

      They call the distance ten miles.

      That's enough work. Let's call it a day and go home.

      • 1842, Henry Brougham, Political Philosophy:

        The whole army is called 700,000 men

   5. (transitive) To formally recognise a death: especially to announce and record the time, place and fact of a person’s death.
      • 1997, Joanni Nelson Horchler, Robin Rice Morris, The SIDS Survival Guide: Information and Comfort for Grieving Family and Friends and Professionals who Seek to Help Them, page 33:

        “Let’s call it. Time of death, 08:45.” The respiratory therapist stopped bagging. The doctor stopped CPR. There was no heartbeat on the monitor. Michael was dead.

        • 2012, Marcy O. Diehl, Medical Transcription: Techniques and Procedures (Seventh Edition), page 127:

          EXAMPLES: Time of death was called at 16:34(Incorrect). Time of death was called at 1634 p.m.(Incorrect). Time of death was called at 1634 hours(Correct). NOTE: Military (or 24-hour) time is not used with a.m, p.m, or o’clock. It is frequently used to state birth and death times, as well as time of day in autopsy protocols. It is customary to write the word hours after the figures.

      • 2015, Tracey Cleantis, The Next Happy: Let Go of the Life You Planned and Find a New Way Forward‎:

        If you are staring your dream in the face and seeing that it is time to quit, I urge you to call the time of death right now. You can sit here with this book in your hand and do it, or climb to a mountaintop and shout it, or write it on a message in a bottle and throw it out to sea. However you do it, do it. I can guarantee that there is life on the other side of the impossible. And naming the time of death is an important process in moving on, letting go, and getting to the other side.

   6. (transitive) To claim the existence of some malfeasance; to denounce as.

      I call bullshit.

      She called foul on their scheme.

      • 2008, PC Magazine‎:

        Having been around the block a few times, I immediately called "shenanigans” on it, but even so, I was taken aback.

   7. (obsolete) To disclose the class or character of; to identify.
      • c. 1608–1610, Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, “Philaster: Or, Love Lies a Bleeding”, in Fifty Comedies and Tragedies. […], [part 1], London: […] J[ohn] Macock [and H. Hills], for John Martyn, Henry Herringman, and Richard Marriot, published 1679, →OCLC, Act I, scene i, page 22, column 2:

        This ſpeech calls him Spaniard, being nothing but / A large inventory of his own commendations.

4. (heading, sports) Direct or indirect use of the voice.
   1. (cricket) (of a batsman): To shout directions to the other batsman on whether or not they should take a run.
   2. (baseball, cricket) (of a fielder): To shout to other fielders that he intends to take a catch (thus avoiding collisions).
   3. (intransitive, poker) To equal the same amount that other players are currently betting.

      I bet $800 and Jane raised to $1600. My options: call (match her $1600 bet), reraise or fold.

   4. (intransitive, poker, proscribed) To match the current bet amount, in preparation for a raise in the same turn. (Usually, players are forbidden to announce one's play this way.)

      I’ll call your 300, and raise to 600!

   5. (transitive) To state, or invoke a rule, in many games such as bridge, craps, jacks, and so on.

      My partner called two spades.

5. (transitive, sometimes with for) To require, demand.

   He felt called to help the old man.

6. (transitive, with into) To cause to be verbally subjected to.
   • 1910, Emerson Hough, “The Gateway, and Some Who Passed”, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC, page 29:

     Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, of errand not wholly obvious to their fellows, yet of such sort as to call into query alike the nature of their errand and their own relations.

   The basis for his conclusion was called into doubt

7. (transitive, colloquial) To lay claim to an object or role which is up for grabs.

   I call the comfy chair!

   • 1998, “The Trouble with Trillions”, in The Simpsons‎, season 9:

     Mr. Burns: Any of these islands would make a fine new country. / Homer: I call president! / Mr. Burns: Vice president! / Smithers: [groans]

8. (transitive, finance) To announce the early extinction of a debt by prepayment, usually at a premium.
9. (transitive, banking) To demand repayment of a loan.
10. (transitive, computing) To jump to (another part of a program); to perform some operation, returning to the original point on completion.

    A recursive function is one that calls itself.

11. (Yorkshire) To scold.
    • 1865, William Stott Banks, Wakefield Words, page 11:

      CALL 1 scold"

12. (sports) To make a decision as a referee or umpire.

    The goal was called offside.

13. (cue sports) To tell in advance which shot one is attempting.

    Every shot must be called.

• In older forms of English, when the pronoun thou was in active use, and verbs used -est for distinct second-person singular indicative forms, the verb call had the form callest, and had calledst for its past tense.
• Similarly, when the ending -eth was in active use for third-person singular present indicative forms, the form calleth was used.
• The sense of naming an object, as with the phrase it's called a(n), is intended to humiliate a listener when the object is known to be familiar:

  Hey, here's something to keep you dry in the rain. It's called an umbrella.

• (cry or shout): holler, yell; see also Thesaurus:shout
• (contact by telephone): drop a line, ring, get on the horn, give someone a ring, give someone a bell; see also Thesaurus:telephone
• (rouse from sleep): wake up; see also Thesaurus:awaken
• (name or refer to): designate, dub, name; see also Thesaurus:denominate
• (predict): augur, foretell; see also Thesaurus:predict
• (cue sports): name, nominate; see also Thesaurus:specify

call (countable and uncountable, plural calls)

1. A telephone conversation; a phone call.

   I received several phone calls today.

   I received several calls today.

2. An instance of calling someone on the telephone.

   I made a call to Jim, but he didn't answer.

3. A short visit, usually for social purposes.

   I paid a call to a dear friend of mine.

   • 1785, William Cowper, “Book I. The Sofa.”, in The Task, a Poem, […], London: […] J[oseph] Johnson;  […], →OCLC, pages 13–14:

     He [...] ſeldom waits, / Dependent on the baker's punctual call, / To hear his creaking panniers at the door, / Angry and ſad and his laſt cruſt conſumed.

   • 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 149:

     Podson stayed till after five, though he handsomely apologized for outstaying a call. "The fact is, I never think of the time, when I get talking to a really intelligent woman...'

4. (nautical) A visit by a ship or boat to a port.

   The ship made a call at Southampton.

5. A cry or shout.

   He heard a call from the other side of the room.

6. A decision or judgement.

   That was a good call.

7. The characteristic cry of a bird or other animal.

   That sound is the distinctive call of the cuckoo bird.

8. A beckoning or summoning.

   I had to yield to the call of the wild.

   • 1711 October 8 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “THURSDAY, September 27, 1711”, in The Spectator, number 181; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume II, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC, page 440:

     Dependance is a perpetual call upon humanity, and a greater incitement to tenderness and pity, than any other motive whatsoever.

     The spelling has been modernized.

   • 1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter XXIII, in Lady Trevelyan (Hannah More Macaulay), editor, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume V, London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, →OCLC, page 117:

     But they had hoped that, when peace had been restored, when no call of duty required him [William III of England] to cross the sea, he would generally, during the summer and autumn, reside in his fair palaces and parks on the banks of the Thames, [...]

   • 2007, Latina, volume 11, page 101:

     We actually have a call tomorrow, which is a Sunday, right after my bridal shower. I have to make enchiladas for 10 people!

9. The right to speak at a given time during a debate or other public event; the floor.

   The Prime Minister has the call.

   I give the call to the Manager of Opposition Business.

10. (finance) Short for call option.
11. (cricket) The act of calling to the other batsman.
12. (cricket) The state of being the batsman whose role it is to call (depends on where the ball goes.)
13. (uncountable) A work shift which requires one to be available when requested, i.e. on call.
    • 1978, Alan E. Nourse, The Practice‎, Harper & Row, →ISBN:

      page 48: “Mondays would be great, especially after a weekend of call.”
      page 56: “ […] I’ve got call tonight, and all weekend, but I’ll be off tomorrow to help you some.”

    • 2007, William D. Bailey, You Will Never Run out of Jesus, CrossHouse Publishing,, →ISBN:

      page 29: I took general-surgery call at Bossier Medical Center and asked special permission to take general-medical call, which was gladly given away by the older staff members: […] . You would be surprised at how many surgical cases came out of medical call.

      page 206: My first night of primary medical call was greeted about midnight with a very ill 30-year-old lady who had a temperature of 103 degrees.

    • 2008, Jamal M. Bullocks et al., Plastic Surgery Emergencies: Principles and Techniques, Thieme, →ISBN, page ix:

      We attempted to include all topics that we ourselves have faced while taking plastic surgery call at the affiliated hospitals in the Texas Medical Center, one of the largest medical centers in the world, which sees over 100,000 patients per day.

    • 2009, Steven Louis Shelley, A Practical Guide to Stage Lighting, page 171:

      The columns in the second rectangle show fewer hours, but part of that is due to the fact that there's a division between a work call and a show call.

14. (computing) The act of jumping to a subprogram, saving the means to return to the original point.
15. A statement of a particular state, or rule, made in many games such as bridge, craps, jacks, and so on.

    There was a 20 dollar bet on the table, and my call was 9.

16. (poker) The act of matching a bet made by a player who has previously bet in the same round of betting.
17. A note blown on the horn to encourage the dogs in a hunt.
18. (nautical) A whistle or pipe, used by the boatswain and his mate to summon the sailors to duty.
19. A pipe or other instrument to call birds or animals by imitating their note or cry. A game call.
20. An invitation to take charge of or serve a church as its pastor.
21. (archaic) Vocation; employment; calling.
22. (US, law) A reference to, or statement of, an object, course, distance, or other matter of description in a survey or grant requiring or calling for a corresponding object, etc., on the land.
23. (informal, slang, prostitution) A meeting with a client for paid sex; hookup; job.
    • 2015 March 3, Lyda Longa, “Internet hookups mean fewer prostitutes on Daytona’s streets, police say”, in The Daytona Beach News-Journal‎, Daytona Beach, Fla.:

      "They have a little network of women that watch out for each other," Morford said. That means that if one prostitute doesn't come back after going out on a call – whether it's an Internet prostitute or a streetwalker – and the other women can't get hold of her, they get scared, close up shop and won't work, Morford said.

24. (law) A lawyer who was called to the bar (became licensed as a lawyer) in a specified year.
    • 2020 October 28, Master K.E. Jolley, “Korlyakov v. Riesz, 2020 ONSC 6622”, in CanLII‎, retrieved 19 June 2021:

      The work was done by two lawyers, one a 1983 call and the other a 2010 call.

25. (in negative constructions) Need; necessity.

    There's no call for that kind of bad language!

    • 1865, William Stott Banks, Wakefield Words, page 11:

      CALL 2 need for. "There worn't noa call for nowt o't'soart."

• → Armenian: քոլ (kʻol)
• → Georgian: ქოლი (koli)